WAYANG CROWN

My inspiration came while I was shelving books at the library. I saw ‘Inside the Puppet Box’, a book about Javanese leather puppets. Wayang kulit, what they called in Indonesia is a shadow puppet performance that accompanies by gamelan orchestra. Coming from the culture, I was inspired to interpretate the costume in today’s contemporary world.

Wayang in general is loosing audience. People are not interested in that anymore, especially the younger crowd that prefer something more contemporary. There were efforts in changing the story to current interest, but the visual remains the same. Changing the visual aspect of the performance into a more fashionable and contemporary is one the solution to bringing new audience. I chose the headpiece as my main project project because it plays a very important part of identifying each character of wayang. I want to create a costume that still has soul of traditional Javanese value but is contemporary enough to be featured in glossy magazine.